Letter-writer Michael R. Hudson believes that Gov. John Hickenlooper’s plan to medically insure 160,000 more people cannot save money and that nowhere in the “real world” could that be done.

I beg to differ. Every industrialized country in the world has universal insurance coverage and most of those have health care costs less than 50 percent of the United States’. In addition, the health outcomes of those countries are much higher. The most recent World Health Organization ranking placed the United States at 37th in the world.

Those of us who are insured already pay the health care costs of those who are not insured. The uninsured, not having their own primary care physicians, go to expensive hospital emergency rooms for care. Add to these costs the high overhead of multiple for-profit insurance companies and you begin to understand the reason that every study that has been done in Colorado and other states concludes that universal coverage is the only way we can begin to decrease health care costs.

Lois Howard, Littleton

This letter was published in the Jan. 23 edition.

It seems that people who oppose Gov. John Hickenlooper’s plan to expand Medicaid fail to understand that we currently have a form of universal health care in that when an insured person becomes sick, they call their doctor, but when the uninsured become sick, they will call an ambulance or go directly to the emergency room. According to consumerhealthratings.com[2], the average doctor visit costs $199, while the average ER visit by an uninsured costs between $1,306 and $1,397, depending on age. The other difference is that the doctor will treat the cause of the symptoms while the ER will merely try to stabilize the patient, and if that doesn’t cure the cause, then in all likelihood the patient will continue to return when the symptoms reoccur until it requires admittance to the hospital, which in turn becomes even costly. Since the income levels of these people are so low, these bills will be unpaid by the patient and paid for by the insured.

It boils down to: Do you want to pay $199 through your tax dollars or pay $1,306 or more through increased heath insurance premiums?

James Macdonald, Denver

This letter was published online only.

For information on how to send a letter to the editor, click here[3]. Follow eLetters[4] on Twitter to receive updates about new letters to the editor when they’re posted.

Oh, Mr. Macdonald, don’t try to confuse the Obamacare haters with numbers. The emergency room is their solution to the healthcare problem.

#2 Comment By Dano2 On January 22, 2013 @ 6:21 pm

We already showed how that letter-writer mentioned above was being dishonest when he asserted it couldn’t be done.

Apparently some believe markets can’t work in health care, despite their cries for privatization and markets.

Best,

D

#3 Comment By Robtf777 On January 22, 2013 @ 7:36 pm

“Can Colorado insure more on Medicaid and reduce costs?”
————
No.

The “idea” that Colorado can “insure more people” and at the same time “reduce costs” is based on (if you read the “fine print”):

(1) the “cost savings” that will come from “eliminating or reducing waste and fraud”…….that is based on the assumptions that (a) they exist (b) the Sate can find them (c) they can be eliminated or reduced in a cost-effective way.

(2) the “cost savings” by…..reducing the amount of money that doctors and hospitals and clinics are “reimbursed” for providing medical care. This is a fallacy since, although it looks good on paper, in real life it would mean fewer doctors and hospitals and clinics even wanting to stay in business or treating those on “Government Insurance” due to either the “lower profit margin” or “real and actual LOSS” due to the “reduced reimbursement rates.”

Thus, while “cost savings” from #2 are put on paper to make The Government (Democrats) look good……they are ALWAYS….ALWAYS…..ALWAYS…..RESCINDED just a few months later…..BEFORE they actually take place.

It’s the EXACT SAME TACTIC both Clinton and Obama used before…….with very limited or no real success in actually reducing Health Care Costs. But, heck, as they know all to well….”You can fool some of the people all of the time…..”……especially when it comes to Democrat Politicians fooling Democrat Voters.

The ONLY way the State can realistically insure MORE people at REDUCED costs…..is by trimming Health Care Costs…..by reducing the Health Care Services the Government is willing to pay for.

#4 Comment By Robtf777 On January 22, 2013 @ 7:47 pm

Why would ANYBODY go to the doctor…..Monday-Friday….8am -5pm…..when an Emergency Room is open 24/7/366 (leap years)……and The Government (You the Taxpayers) pick up the tab…..in full?

I wouldn’t.

Provide Universal Health Care or Expanded Medicare or whatever that covers me and ANY and ALL health care needs I think I have…..and I will choose the one that provides the QUICKEST and EASIEST care. And that may not be calling a doctor to schedule an appointment.

#5 Comment By peterpi On January 22, 2013 @ 9:48 pm

Funny how you skipped Bush.

#6 Comment By jayreadyjay On January 23, 2013 @ 8:12 am

Unless they get a lot of new doctors all Obamacare will do is to switch who will be going to the emergency room.

#7 Comment By kelcy On January 23, 2013 @ 10:21 am

Kind of off topic but goes to the lament that there are not enough doctors to support health care reform. There are enough doctors over all but there are too many “specialists.” Back “in the beginning” doctors realized that specialists were deemed, well special so got better reimbursement for being special. So almost everyone became some type of specialist overtime. Because Specialists exist then the “system” must use them because they are there and of course “We the People” do not want to not see the specialists….what if they know more than the regular old doctor (of which there are fewer and fewer). Also, there are now specialists with sub sub sub specialties.

Case in point. FIL went into the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia which became septic. Over the course of his hospitalization he had an internal medicine doctor (who was actually part of the practice he goes to), a cardiologist (he developed some afib), an infectious disease doc (for the sepsis) and a pulmonologist (for the pneumonia after all). Four docs (plus a weekend back up of course). Never figured out what the Int. Med guy actually showed up for but he did bill medicare for his time. Medicare paid for five docs who were special to treat one patient with a normal case of pneumonia and its typical complications. Whatever happened to the notion that a doctor was trained to treat such things as a normal course of events? Now people can go on and on about how docs don’t want to treat medicare patients but seriously, even at medicare approved rates, these guys making their rounds spent five minutes in the room looking at his chart, writing that they had looked at the chart, that his meds should continue and then got several hundreds of dollars payment for that days five minutes.

We are a nation of specialists that cannot or will not provide care outside their special niche. Do we really have a shortage of doctors? Or do we just poorly use what we have because we created specialist with how we pay doctors.

[By the way….. for the entitlement crowd…..FIL used up twice what he paid into Medicare Part A over his life time with this one hospitalization…..so he has spent his entitlement.]

#8 Comment By mrfxx On January 24, 2013 @ 9:25 am

The ER is NOT FREE, in fact, it costs many times what seeing a PCP does; however, Federal law mandates that NO ER can turn away patients. Given that little “gotcha”, do you HONESTLY believe that hospitals “write off” unpaid bills – or is it MUCH more likely that part of the “markup” for services includes costs that hospitals are well aware they would have to write off? Take as many hours (or weeks or years in your case) as you need to figure out that the insured pay for the uninsured one way or another.